UNITING OR ACCEPTING?
Cecil Hook

We are hearing of unity meetings in which the participants work to break down the walls that separate our differing groups. Those efforts are to be commended and encouraged. What I am about to say is not intended to be overly critical of them.

Instead of having unity meetings, however, should we not be having accepting meetings? God has already created the unity. All who are in Christ are in one body. The church is one and cannot be divided into two or more churches or bodies. When we separate into groups because of our differences, we only become sectarian. The person who rejects other brothers and sisters in Christ is sectarian in spirit and practice. It is not the meeting in different groups that is sinful but it is the refusing to recognize others who are in God’s family. God put us in the same body; let us learn to accept each other.

If we are in Christ, we are children of God and members of his spiritual family. He has only one family. Our efforts should not be directed toward creating one family of God but to the accepting of other brothers and sisters whom God has given us in the family he has already created. It is a sin against the father to reject his other children.

In the parable about the prodigal son, the father had a united family even while the prodigal was away and also after his return. The two sons were brothers in the same family of the same father all the time. Upon the return of the profligate one, the older brother rejected him. They were still brothers but one judged the other to be unworthy when he should have left the judging to the father. The father had accepted him fully. We condemn ourselves when we judge and turn away from our brother.

It was the brother who was so obedient, good, and right who was the greater disappointment. His rejection of his brother, if sustained, would be more of a long-range threat to the family than the sins of the flesh of the brother. The sins of immorality were repented of, but the parable leaves us with a self-righteous older brother who thought he was too good to stoop to receive his brother who had erred.

That is the same kind of rejecting attitude that plagues the older brothers in God’s family today.

To have accepted the errant brother back would not have given endorsement to his pig-pen conduct. Brotherhood did not originate from nor depend upon their conduct, but it was the result of having the same father. Surely, the young son had lived a filthy life of which neither the father nor the son could approve. But the father was the only one who could rightly judge, disinherit, or disclaim him. The older brother was stuck with him!

In the dead church at Sardis there were a few good brothers who had not wandered into the far country. “Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments.” The delinquent ones were called upon to repent, but the older brothers were not called upon to judge and reject them.

Brothers do not decide to fellowship each other in order to unite in the father’s family. It is not fellowship him and then unite with him, but rather recognize the fellowship that the family relationship creates.

Should the Church of Christ accept the Christian Church, and visa versa? No, for acceptance is an individual matter. Each of us must accept all the children of God without regard to the particular names worn to distinguish their sectarian exclusiveness.

Children of God are separated into splintered groups. When the various individuals in these churches accept other brothers and sisters across our divisive lines, we can come to appreciate that there is one body, one church.

Since all who are in the one body do not accept each other, it seems appropriate that we have accepting meetings in order to work toward healing the sores caused by our sin of alienation. But since acceptance is not a corporate action, you need not wait for meetings to bring it about. Just begin individually to accept all of God’s children with whom he has united you in one body.—1350 Huisache. New Braunfels. TX 78130